SOMEWHAT FRANK

Seriosity Email Currency To Curb Overload?

Information overload attributed to email is a serious problem. There have been a few companies looking to help. I have been using AwayFind with an away message to help set email reply expectations and allow users to get ahold of me more quickly with important messages. I also recently heard about a well-funded company called Seriosity looking to put a currency around your email inbox to help combat information overload. This intrigued me so I dug a little deeper to find out just how they are looking to accomplish their mission.

DailyLit Delivers Books Daily Via Email & RSS

With my busy schedule and lots of commitments I find reading books these days a challenge. DailyLit realizes this and has launched a product looking to help make it easier. DailyLit delivers books in managable installments via e-mail or RSS feed. Book updates are sent everyday in chucks that only take a few minutes (2 to 5 minutes) to read and then move on with your day making it possible to actually make progress on reading a book. DailyLit offers over 750 classics and a number of other books. Books range anywhere from free to $9.95 and come in a range of installments depending on the length of the book.

Xobni Social Mail Plugin Finally Goes Public

Xobni, the social email plugin for Outlook, which I highlighted previously has finally opened its doors as a public beta. I initially had some private beta invites that went very fast but I continued to receive inquiries. Now you can get your own copy of the latest Xobni product and test it out for yourself. These are also unconfirmed rumors that Microsoft is bidding to acquire Xobni so it would not be far fetched to think that Xobni could be integrated directly into Microsoft Outlook if the rumor becomes reality.

Xoopit Social Mail Plugin Beta Funded

Though email is a bit of burden at times, it is also in many cases the first point of contact for people as they go about their everyday routine. A large number of email users spend a significant part of their day working inside the email environments. Xoopit, a San Francisco-based startup is looking to capitalize on that point by looking to create a series of products that transform the email inbox into the largest social network. Xoopit takes a similar approach to Xobni an Outlook plugin which I highlighted previously and is rumored to be acquired very soon. Xoopit, today announced they had raised $5 Million Series A round of funding led by Accel Partners and Foundation Capital as they also rolled out a private beta.

Video: Email is Broken & AwayFind Could Help

Is email broken? I have been struggling to manage email for a long time as I attempted to liberate my inbox back in 2005 only to once again stare email bankruptcy in the eyes. Email is such a double-edged sword since I need email to communicate but get so much of it becomes difficult to use effectively. I am not alone, I have heard the same things from a number of colleagues and recently TechCrunch editor and founder Mike Arrington even called the communication crisis produced by email a opportunity for an entrepreneur.  

I recently met Jared Goralnick who is a bit of a productivity guru. Jared joined me on quick SOMEWHAT FRANK TV episode number 17 (below). He recently founded AwayFind.com. AwayFind, a DC-based startup, is looking to help ease some of the email burden so you can focus on your day-to-day tasks without constant interruptions. With AwayFind, which is currently in private beta, users can setup a page (like this one I created) to include in auto-response messages to anyone that emails them. The auto-response offers a little explanation as to when you might get to the mail and a form which can contact the user directly via SMS text messaging and email if the item being sent needs to be handled immediately. You can sign-up for the AwayFind beta here and you can follow them on twitter here.

Sneak Peak: AOL Desktop For Mac

On Valentine's Day, AOL released a sneak peek of the new AOL Desktop for Mac (beta 8), available for all Tiger(R) and Leopard(R) users (10.4.8 or higher). Here are some of the highlights they list on beta.aol.com:

• Increased Speed: Installs in seconds and launches quickly - so you can begin browsing immediately, without signing in.
• New Browser: An all new browser allows you to surf all your favorite sites faster than ever before.
• Tabbed Organization: Tabs on browser windows and instant messages offer easy access and an uncluttered, organized view of all windows.
• Integrated AIM: AIM is built right in so you can see which Buddies are online, chat and more.
• Customization: A highly customizable toolbar makes it easy to keep your favorites at your fingertips, as well as access them on any Internet-connected computer.

Continue reading for additional details on the new AOL Desktop for Mac.

SimplyFile Your Outlook Email Inbox

Email management is something I have written about several times. Most recently, I highlighted Xobni which has helped organize and expose some of the hidden social aspects of email. However, Xobni does not file or read your mail for you. SimplyFile, an Outlook utility by TechHit, helps to organize and file your email in one click.

Xobni Social Email Management Plugin

My email continues to overflow as I receive large amounts in several email accounts. I have written about email management a few times before so needless to say I was very excited to witness the private beta launch of Xobni at TechCrunch40. Xobni is more that just "inbox" spelled backwards as it offers a Microsoft Outlook plugin that helps to attack the email management problem and in doing so exposes the social network behind email. I installed Xobni and was quite impressed with its capabilities.

New AOL Mail Officially Launched

I am not a huge fan of email as I have continually mentioned, however, it is better than snail mail and currently the industry standard communication method. When I do use email I use AOL Mail with my FREE personalized email address on the frankgruber5.com domain. The new AOL Mail has made quite a transformation since its beta launch in March as it continued to add features until it officially launched last week.

Are You A Shareaholic?

Shareaholic makes it easy to submit the web page you are currently viewing in a Firefox browser to Digg, del.icio.us, Facebook, Google bookmarks, Magnolia, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Twitter.

Anymails: Visualize Your Email Inbox

I have written several times about my love/hate relationship with email. So I am definitely on the lookout for email management applications and I just came across something interesting. Anymails, a project created by Carolin Horn as part of her thesis, allows you to visualize your received emails as microbes. The objective of this Flash-based project is to offer the user another type of email experience. Unfortunately, it only currently works on a Mac.

Contactify For Quick, Easy Contact Forms

I have been getting lots of people asking me lately, "how do you submit a site for review on Somewhat Frank?" So I decided to make a simple email contact for submitting a new startup, site or service by leveraging a startup called Contactify. It made creating an email form easy. Contactify makes it possible to remain contactable, with never revealing your email address.

Simply Manage Email Like SMS Messages

I have written about email management a couple of times (here & here) and yet I still struggle to keep both my professional and personal emails uncluttered. So I am always looking for suggestions as to how to handle such a large bulk of email. Nonetheless, I just noticed an article by Mike Davidson which references to sentenc.es, a low-fi solution to email overload.

What is sentenc.es? Sentenc.es puts some rules around replying to your emails. Instead of replying to every email you receive with long-winded replies why not just pretend you are sending an SMS message and put some length parameters around your replies. Though it probably sounds like a joke, I think it actually is a good idea. You can choose from any of the sister sites at two.sentenc.es, three.sentenc.es, four.sentenc.es or five.sentenc.es depending on how brief you want your replies to be. It's so simple yet it might actually work - if you stay discipline that is.

Email Woes Getting You Down? Perhaps the Post Office Can Help

Email used to be so hip. Now it is such a pain in the ass. I have written about email management and liberating my email inbox before, but being on the road the last 19 days has turned my inbox upside down. Om Malik wrote a great piece today about email bankruptcy which starts by saying:

"Email sucks."

I agree. I have thousands of messages and I cannot get through them all. I am hoping to get to them soon, but even on a U.S. holiday (July 4th) emails continued to flow in like a river of hell. These days I am finding myself looking for more interesting ways to communicate, whether it be via the notes or comments on Flickr photos, Facebook status, wall or other messages, SMS or Twitter.

All this pondering reminded me of the good old days when getting mail from the post office, that’s right, “snail mail" was the way to communicate. So I did a little poking around and found that there are a couple of products offering users the ability to easily send “snail mail” from the Web.  If you think your email inbox is cluttered, now your kitchen counter and office desk can be cluttered too!

Postful offers users the ability to have any email sent via the post office for the charge of $0.99 for the first page and $0.25 for each additional page. Postful's mission is to be the bridge between the digital and physical worlds – thus making easy to send emails as letters to grandparents and other non-email users.

Easy Post, a Canada startup, offers users the ability have mail sent directly from the Web to Canada addresses. Easy Post is free anywhere in Canada.

eSnailer offers users the ability to send any letter over “snail mail” via the Web. eSnailer is free because it is supported by ads and free offers that are shown after you write your letter. Users must accept a free offer in return for the service.

If you want to go the other way and turn all your "snail mail" into email you should check out Remote Control Mail which was highlighted previously on TechCrunch.

Bottom-line: Information overload is a problem regardless of the medium, we can take ongoing measures to defense the problem.

AOL Mail Adding AIM & Unlimited Storage

AOL Mail which I highlighted previously as it launched into beta has continued to change more than just its color palette from French gray to the more traditional AOL blue and gray as it improved over the past three months. I recently got a chance to sit down with Roy Ben-Yoseph, AOL vice president of mail products, and was pleased to see that aside from the slick Ajax interface which I highlighted in my previous article, AOL Mail looks to continue to improve the its integration options in its innovative right pane. I presume other email options will soon look to duplicate the right pane feature as it offers a great place to display tools.

The next release of AOL Mail is going to have integrated AIM chat to accompany the calendar, to do list and feed options. AOL Mail will also soon offer RSS feeds, POP3 support and unlimited storage. AOL Mail is a much improved product as the new open and free AOL continues to beef up its web product offerings.

Disclosure: I am an AOL employee. I do not work on AOL Mail but I am the product manager for two other AOL products.